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Long Beach, California—T. Boone Pickens is an energy financier who made a name for himself by becoming an advocate for wind power. But in the face of the changing energy landscape in the US, he's now pushing what he calls an "alternative alternative energy plan." It's not wind, and not solar, but Pickens at least has something the United States utterly lacks: an actual plan. And his plan is one that that puts the US first, which, unsurprisingly, was a polarizing view at the ever-globally minded TED Conference.

Pickens set the stage for his US-first argument by describing what has happened over the last 40 years as "the greatest transfer of wealth form one group to another group in history." How much? According to Pickens, the US has seen more than $7 trillion of wealth transferred out of the US economy into OPEC nations since 1976. How did this come to be?

In 1912, as Pickens tells it, our country was facing an energy crisis. We were considering crude oil, whale blubber, and coal as possible ways to power our future. We needed something that was cheap, and we didn't care where we bought it. Our society chose crude oil, and to this day oil remains at the center of American energy consumption. The problem, of course, is that crude oil is no longer cheap. Some might also note that crude oil has a tremendously negative effect on our environment, but Pickens did not bother to talk about that.

One hundred years after our last transformational energy crisis, Pickens said we must decide what we are going to use in the future, and commit to a plan. We know our needs: something that's cleaner and cheaper than crude oil. But Pickens would also insist that it needs to be domestic. "And we have that," he said. "It's natural gas." In fact, "we are overwhelmed with natural gas."

But our access to natural gas is not the only thing to recommend it. Crude oil has many hidden costs. No, we're not talking about climate effects (Pickens didn't address climate in his talk, either). Rather, he points to the US's self-appointed role as the world's "oil police," an expense that is truly massive. Consider this: there are 12 supercarrier class aircraft carriers on Earth. The US has 11 of them, and China is building one. Why does the US have so many? Just look where they congregate when not in American waters: the Middle East.

Pickens noted that the US uses 25 percent of the world's daily consumption of oil each day, to the tune of 20 million barrels. Twelve million of those originate from outside the United States. And all of this power for only four percent of the world's population. The number two consumer of oil is the Chinese, who use half what the US uses (10 million), even though they have five times the population of the United States.

But China is doing things about energy that we are not. China has a transportation and energy plan aimed at making sure the country can meet its needs and sustain economic growth (Including fuel efficiency standards for vehicles that dwarf those in the US). Here in the US, we have no plan—we're the worst off by far, and yet we have no national plan. Pickens finds this astonishingly unwise.

The supply isn't the only concern with oil, either. "The days of cheap oil are over," Pickens notes, but it has little to do with scarcity. The price of oil set by OPEC, by the Saudis, has little to do with the cost of that oil. What we pay for oil from the Saudis has much more to do with the Saudis' social spending commitments in their own country. That is, most of what we're paying for is making Saudi Arabia meet its financial and social obligations.

While this unprecedented wealth transfer is underway, we are sitting on massive amounts of natural gas. In terms of energy equivalents to barrels of oil, Pickens claims that the US has at least 3 times what the Saudis have. Given the fact that crude oil prices will only increase over time, he said it's time to commit to a plan. Even if we don't yet know what the full solution to our energy needs will be, we can at least begin to build a bridge that is headed simultaneously toward the future and away from the past.

Pickens argues that natural gas is the perfect "bridge fuel" that can begin to lessen our dependency on oil, holding us over until the next energy crisis. A first step would be to convert the 8 million heavy trucks in the US to run on natural gas. Then we turn to other aspects of the transportation system. The goal, he argues, should be to move closer and closer to independence from oil. "We have to get on our own resources in America," Pickens pleas. "It is costing us a billion dollars a day for oil," and we are grossly overpaying for it.

Although Pickens never explicitly says so, it is clear that he is less concerned about the effects on climate that burning fossil fuels present. In fact, at one point, he joked that he'll be long dead by the time the problem becomes truly critical (nevermind that many would argue that it already is). "Natural gas is the bridge fuel; I don't have to worry about the bridge to where at my age," he chuckled. Without doubt, Pickens' biggest concern is that we simply stop giving our wealth away to OPEC and others.

This isn't Pickens' first foray into the future of energy, but for what it's worth, he is willing to put his money where his mouth is. The famous oilman did not hesitate to mention that he had lost $150 million on wind farm energy initiatives when price of natural gas fell by a third.

Although most of the TED audience would agree with Pickens that any plan would be better than our current approach, not everyone was comfortable with his "bridge to I-don't-know-where" view, or his willingness to punt climate issues and questions about fracking's impact on future generations. Perhaps more significantly, TED talks have pretty consistently focused on solving humanity's problems as a whole. Pickens' us-versus-them, US-first view of the energy landscape was unique and perhaps jarring. And it was perfect for TED.

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Ken Fisher
Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation. Emailken@arstechnica.com//Twitter@kenfisher

149 Reader Comments

For what it is worth, I would love to see more natural gas vehicles out there. And if you can refuel from your home hookup - even better (although there would be an army of Gas station lobbyists out trying to prove how unsafe this would be...)

Wow this is a truly interesting thought. I was not aware of the reserves of Natural Gas that were available. Electric cars afterall don't really improve our environmental damage if we are burning more coal in order to create the electricity.

Clearly the environmental costs of fracking remain a large uncertainty. But the cost of natural gas has dropped substantially. Ending our trade deficit for purchasing imported oil would be a big step in improving the prospects for the American economy. We should be pushing ahead with this approach. But part of that push does need to be an effort to ensure that the environmental costs of fracking are not worse than other realistic procedures for obtaining the energy supply America depends on.

My parents live in an area identified for fracking - not in the US but in Australia.

There's a lot of community opposition, most local councils are against it, but things like this show just how futile their efforts are.The US becoming a natural gas saudi arabia basically means the spectre of peak oil is gone. One great measure for the limitations of fossil fuel business as usual has been overcome - there's enough natural gas there to last hundreds of years.

We have another few hundred years of mining stored carbon, this time with the added disadvantage of poisoning fresh water supplies and arable land, because nobody wants to be no hippy or something and make renewable energy happen.

Meanwhile, local councils and residents can complain, sue and illegally disrupt fracking operations all they want, but whether it's now or in 10 years nothing will stop their land being sacrificed on the alter of private vehicle operation in major cities.

We may not yet know where the bridge is going to take us, but sometimes it's just as important to start loading the wagon as it is to hitch up the mules. Whether the end results turns out to be cold fusion, tidal bore generators, or eggbeater wind turbines on every roof, it won't matter if we can't afford to get there. time for the US to start leading, instead of the congressional bickering and partisan grandstanding that's become the norm. The future can only be what we make.

This article is poor reporting. How could you write a piece about T. Boone Pickens and not point out that the man is a billionaire oil tycoon and is sitting on a ton of natural gas? You can't trust a word he says--of course he wants everyone to rush out and do everything with gas; he stands to make a shit ton of money.

Seriously, this article is just uncritical reporting of the self-serving lies this guy spews.

The problem is that there is massive political capital in pretending that there is an inexhaustible supply of cheap oil that our enemies, either foreign or domestic, are preventing us from obtaining. Until energy is discussed in rational and scientific manner, we are screwed.

Wouldn't natural gas be, you know, explosive? if two cars were to get in an accident?

Probably no more explosive than gasoline is already.

Gasoline is much less explosive than portrayed in the movies. It really needs time to mix with air before igniting to be explosive. Otherwise it just burns.

CNG = compressed natural gas, can be explosive if the tank ruptures. They are built pretty strong for just this reason. Ideally you also design the frame around the tank to minimize impact on the tank in a collision. Functionally that probably adds weight more than it adds any actual danger.

Pickens is a genius. Avoid the "pollution" and "climate" debates, keep the money in the crosshairs.

Natural gas is not the end state of American energy policy, of course. But it's a good first step that wouldn't require a radical shift in how Americans consume; just how much it costs.

Of course Pickens himself stands to profit from natural gas, which is why it's confusing that he instead championed renewable energies first. He may be so rich that there's no reason for him to look for new ways to get richer. "Sustainably rich," as it were.

Natural gas is a very clean burning fuel, a natural gas based economy in theory is a huge step up from our current carbon sources. We burn natural gas in our houses with few problems.

The problem with what is the inevitable future of cheap, plentiful fracking natural gas in the US is that it will be cheap and plentiful.

Hybrid natural gas and electric cars would represent significant reductions in smog and greenhouse gas emissions, but do you really think hybrid cars will be in demand when natural gas is 10c a gallon? Humans will do what we've always done across history and burn it up as quickly as we can get it out of the ground. We're looking at the heyday of gas guzzling 1950s culture all over again.

I dunno about natural gas, specifically, but I tend to agree with Pickens.

Regarding the environmental thing, he doesn't _have_ to address it. It may be a general concern, but that wasn't the point of his talk. It was a specialist talk, and he didn't pretend otherwise.

Regarding the US-first thing, we need to get our own house in order before we can go back to solving the world's problems. (Or flailing about trying to, as the case may be.) Hybrids don't cut it*, and we don't have cold-fusion power sources yet, so natural gas might be a...er...natural short-term option. I mean, there are already natural gas powered vehicles (and have been for a while) so the basics are already in place, the basic infrastructure is in place and just requires scaling out, etc. Then in 10 years or so when some pothead from MIT or wherever figures out that the key to cold fusion is hot dogs and we get plentiful, clean energy (albeit at the cost of some swine), we'd have partially or largely avoided the economic problems with oil use.

*There are several studies regarding the total environmental impact of hybrids and EVs, if you count in the costs of mining and refining the rare elements required in the first place, and the hybrids don't come off all that great. Quite aside from functional issues like making really shitty work or hauling vehicles.

"the greatest transfer of wealth form one group to another group in history."

form -> form [sic] or from ?

Anyway... Natural gas is supposed to be the cleanest, most efficient of the fossil fuels. It burns cleaner and more efficiently than oil and coal. From a Canadian perspective, I'm also not opposed to it on the grounds that we're already the third largest exporter of natural gas in the world. Increased demand there will help us further expand our energy sector.

Anyways, I thought Russia kinda had the natural gas thing all wrapped up, heck, they just agreed to build a pipeline to Denmark to supply Western Europe (Denmark controls an island called Bornholm, so they needed Denmarks approval), in exchange for Denmark building some no bid factories in Russia. Russians, easy to do business with.

I like to be reminded that our elected leadership totally blows while spending all their time debating whether or not we should invoke a national anti-condom campaign because they prayed and god whispered in their ear that he hates us having sex unless it results in heterosexual offspring.

It's OK if we're last in the world as long as we all pray to a christain god and don't touch ourselves.

To the commenters who said "we should be doing this," we really already are. The cheap price of natural gas is currently, right now, impacting the economic viability of solar, wind, and nuclear power. Those aren't getting built, and natural gas plants are. Gasses are less energy dense than liquids, so natural gas isn't as efficient for transport until you get some decent economies of scale, but the cheap price will override arguments about efficiency and environmental impact. Natural gas does tend to be less carbon intensive than oil, but oil is so convenient that all the reasonably cheaply extractable oil is going to get burned in the long run anyway. This cheap gas is really a net increase in carbon to the atmosphere because it's displacing those zero or low carbon sources.

Wouldn't natural gas be, you know, explosive? if two cars were to get in an accident?

Probably no more explosive than gasoline is already.

Gasoline is much less explosive than portrayed in the movies. It really needs time to mix with air before igniting to be explosive. Otherwise it just burns.

CNG = compressed natural gas, can be explosive if the tank ruptures. They are built pretty strong for just this reason. Ideally you also design the frame around the tank to minimize impact on the tank in a collision. Functionally that probably adds weight more than it adds any actual danger.

The Post Office has thousands of CNG powered vehicles on the road and you never hear about a Postal vehicle going postal.

Many city transit authorities use CNG or propane powered busses. Many facilities ( eg warehouse, mine ) require the used of CNG or propane powered equipment due to the fact that the fumes from gasoline powered equipment will kill everyone.

Honda sells a CNG version of the Civic ( but only 2,000/year ). They are available on eBay for thousands over sticker.

Wouldn't natural gas be, you know, explosive? if two cars were to get in an accident?

We've had NG powered vehicles on the roads for decades. I remember seeing them as a kid. They're usually a pickup truck but I've seen small cars converted also. The same concern was raised against gasoline at first also. It's not a real concern; the safety mechanisms exist to handle it.

I cannot condone widespread fracking to retrieve this "overwhelming" amount of natural gas. Natural gas companies are now exempt from the Clean Water act, and they don't care about polluting streams, rivers, and underground water with their chemicals.

Pickens made a name for himself long before he started talking about wind. But that's a minor quibble.

He is definitely right in that we need to do the work to build a practical, workable plan. I believe NG has a prominent place in that plan. We already have a lot of NG production and distribution capability. Those are sunk costs, why not capitalize on them?

Certainly there are folks who will oppose any plan that features fossil fuels. But this is also true of any other energy source one cares to name. It is past time to make these hard choices.

I'm glad he is bringing this up now. Maybe it can seep into the presidential debates and a mandate can evolve from it.

Would love to see someone put it into real figures the average American can relate to. How much would an NG car cost? How many dollars per mile would it consume? How much would it cost to upgrade the typical service station to provide NG fueling capabilities? How long would it take to fuel your car? Can safer and more user-friendly fuel hoses and nozzles be deployed en masse?

This article is poor reporting. How could you write a piece about T. Boone Pickens and not point out that the man is a billionaire oil tycoon and is sitting on a ton of natural gas? You can't trust a word he says--of course he wants everyone to rush out and do everything with gas; he stands to make a shit ton of money.

Seriously, this article is just uncritical reporting of the self-serving lies this guy spews.

"The famous oilman did not hesitate to mention that he had lost $150 million on wind farm energy initiatives when price of natural gas fell by a third."

You were saying?

Of course Pickens has a stake in it. Every person in TED has a stake in their idea taking off. Almost all presenters in those videos stand to make - as you so eloquently put it - a shit ton of money if their pitches at TED work.

Granted, I don't think he's right. Oil has the same problem as Natural Gas: while it's more renewable and available than oil, it's still finite. 11-60 years is just as short of a window as petroleum. I'd rather have Natural Gas used in Mass Transit (the most effective use of it for transportation) and power generation rather than mass consumption... those roles fit the use of it better. At least until a better renewable source makes itself apparent.

AceRimmer wrote:

The problem is that there is massive political capital in pretending that there is an inexhaustible supply of cheap oil that our enemies, either foreign or domestic, are preventing us from obtaining. Until energy is discussed in rational and scientific manner, we are screwed.

He is just another opportunist who has big advertising bucks behind his (and many others) scheme to defraud the economic freedom of the US.

Solar and wind are the only energy futures for the US. The US has to switch to solar and wind for most homes and businesses or risk the inevitable crisis when we are held ransom for oil.

As the author mentioned, environmental concerns over NG were ignored by Pikens and should be addressed with any energy sources. NG is highly expensive to transport to the end users. Its one this if all power plants in the US were converted to NG. That might be economical.

Mr. Pikens is right that we need to shift the vast majority of our energy consumption away from oil. Its the most strategic and economical way to keep the US on top of the business world.